Hero
by catchmeonfiree
Summary: "'Sam... you were my hero, OK? You took me away to Narnia, my utopia, when I was feeling down, and you were my hero.'" ONESHOT! Aftermath when Mercedes said no to Sam and if Quinn was there. Please review! Thanks, boo! :3


A/N: _I know that I have some fanfictions that I really have to update soon ('Meet the Evans' is super overdue, sorry!) and I promise that I will, but after last night's episode, I couldn't help myself to write this. This new fanfiction is rated M not because of, ahem, adult situations and... misbehaving, but because in my eyes, it gets pretty emotional and I don't think that only adult situations and misbehavior should get a rating of M... I don't know. :P __**Oh hey, guess what? There's another song to this, like every one of my stories! :D Please read this with 'Looking Back' by Kerry Muzzey! It's a Glee background song, so yeah. Or you could choose to read it with 'River Flows in You' by Yiruma, a Korean piano composer. Both can be found on YouTube! :D And please read the continued author note that I always write at the end. Thanks! **__This is if Quinn had been at the corner where Sam was standing after Mercedes left him. Please review afterwards, thank you! :D _

^.^

Sam Evans heaved a deep breath, his chest and heart dropped down and rose up. Yet another heartbreak for him again. Yet another time where Mercedes had these strong feelings for Sam but still chose Shane over him. He had to avoid another situation like this again. Getting stood up by Mercedes. Having not talking to her for a week, waiting anxiously, fingers fumbling, staring at the clock like it was the end of the world, then to have your heart torn out of your chest, stomped to the ground, and having no one cleaning up after it, no one to say 'are you OK?'. No one to hug and no one to say 'it's going to be alright'. His eyes were getting sleep and getting tired of having to hide again and again. Ms. Pillsbury's plan had worked, all right, but Mercedes just had to ruin it. He knew that she wanted to have two boys fighting over her, even if it wasn't actually fighting. It was more of an awkward glance where Shane had won the war and had the fair maiden in his arms, dashing away into the sunset. But Sam thought that Mercedes had liked him enough to say no to Shane and instead choose him. She told him that summer, told him that she loved him, told him that she would never leave him, and that he had better not leave her. But both of them had broken their promises. The night where she told him that he had to go and move to Kentucky was one of the hardest nights of his life, and he remembered the tears in her eyes. Then when he came back to McKinley and was notified via Kurt that Mercedes was going steady with Shane, Sam spent that night just slamming his bedroom walls, thinking about what he had done wrong. Why? That was the question. Why would she go to Shane when they had promised to each other that night that they would never leave each other. He might have left Ohio to go to Kentucky, but he came back. He came back in spite of the problem at home, where Stevie and Stacey didn't have all the required school supplies, or not enough money to go on a field trip. Where his parents could just barely keep a steady household where they could afford and give their children what they wanted.

Just why?

Just why would she go hopping onto Shane's horse even after she had promised him. _Oh yeah_, Sam thought. _That's right. It's because Shane has a majestic white horse with an amazing mane while I have a tree branch. _Sam knew that he couldn't afford much, couldn't give Mercedes pretty flowers on every date, couldn't go to expensive restaurants or do anything that cost a lot of money, but he knew that he could love her with all his might, and he thought that it was enough for one couple, but evidently, it wasn't to her.

"Sam?"

It was a quiet voice, a timid voice. It was scared of what he would say and how he would react when in reality, Sam was afraid to turn around to see who it was. But he did turn, and he saw Quinn. Just plain old Quinn, nothing he hadn't seen before. She was standing, back straight, near the corner where two walls met, one where it was covered in fliers for the girls' volleyball team and another where it was filled with students' lockers. She fiddled with her fingers, and a small ring on her fourth finger. Quinn Fabray. His first love. The first love whom he thought that he would marry as soon as they got out of high school. The girl who had worked so damn hard to the bone to get what she wanted, but instead got what she deserved. Pregnancy, mono. But he knew that she also deserved good things, like he told her at the soup kitchen on Christmas Eve, right before the whole glee club showed up and burst into a perfect and heartwarming performance of 'Do They Know It's Christmas Time?'. Quinn had got into Yale. Motherfucking Yale University. Little small town used-to-be-pregnant Lima girl was now Miss Graduating-And-Going-To-Yale-University. He was proud of her, but he knew that Mr. Shue was that proudest. Sam knew that everyone had their doubts and ups and downs about Mr. Shuester, but Shue had always been there for them, and had been the one to witness their journeys through high school and their story. And even though Sam hadn't been there to see the first part of Quinn's tale, he knew exactly what she had been through. And he was just so damn proud of her.

"Hey, Quinn," Sam said, waving a hand at her. He loved Quinn, with all of his heart, but he loved her more like a sister, since his troubles with Mercedes had shaken him upside down over and over again. Sam had loved her once in his life, really did love her, really did want to marry her and spend the rest of his life with her, and that same rush had taken over his body once again, but except this time... it was with Mercedes, and he didn't even know if those feelings were true feelings.

"Well, Sam," Quinn began, "Ever since you came back to McKinley, you said that you didn't understand why everyone said that I was having a hard year. You didn't get why they were always feeling pity for me and why they paid special attention and care to me since you didn't see anything wrong with me. Well, I think that I have healed quite well, what with all the amazing news of Yale and all that... but I think that you're the one who's having trouble now, Sam. I've seen that look in your eyes, and the only time I've seen that happen is when I went over to your h-, I mean, the hotel room for the first time and you couldn't stand the fact that I was helping you, Stevie and Stacey, and your parents while dating Finn. There's something bothering you, there's something gnawing at you, and I'm not going to stop until I know what it is, Sam Evans." Quinn crossed her arms. "I won't leave you alone until you spill it." Quinn's eyes kept drilling into his, and no matter how hard he fought, fought to keep up his secret with Mercedes, he just couldn't help himself and let his self go.

"Quinn," he choked out. "Quinn, you don't understand. You won't understand even if I told you one hundred times!" His voice got very loud at the end, but Sam and Quinn were the only ones left in the hallway since everyone else was in the auditorium for an assembly.

Quinn's Mary Jane black pumps hit the ground softly, the heels tacking the floor slightly and Sam sighed. His fists clenched together, dark green veins popping out from beneath his skin. _She won't ever know how I feel_, he thought, _She doesn't know how it feels to love somebody when that other person is in love with another person! _

"Sometimes, Sam... you feel like you are the only person on Earth facing the only bad problem that would of course only happen to you and you feel like you are the only who is left on the cracks of a sidewalk, drowning in your tears, taking you away to a place where you can feel good and that emotion feels like the worst in the entire world, yet that's exactly how you feel when you are with your one. Everything bad that ever happened to you is melting away when you're with her, and the thing that was the world is now a blank canvas where you can draw what you want to see. You get to use your paints, your brushes, no rules, and you get to paint the picture that you want to come alive."

Sam's green eyes stayed locked onto the cold, linoleum floor tiles, dead. Where did she get that from; 'The Notebook'? 'A Walk to Remember'? _Straight out of a Nicholas Sparks novel_, he thought, the ice seeping through his breath.

"Oh yeah? Your point is? Quinn, I know that you're trying to be a good person right now, and I really appreciate that, but sometimes life isn't a movie and you don't have a script where you can look onto when you don't know what to do and have a happily ever after ending-"

"A happily ever after ending can happen if you make it happen, Sam! Do you seriously think that movies' happily ever after endings come to the writers in a snap? Don't you think that they work hard to make something satisfying? A happily ever after ending will never, _never_come to you if you keep on whining, Sam, and if you. Don't. Make. It. Happen," Quinn huffed with a poke in his chest for every syllable.

"Well what about if right now, there's just too much to handle for a happily ever after ending? How about just a happily ever _now_? Maybe God could ever so possibly work me a miracle..." he said, his nose sniffling, "And give me some happiness."

Quinn backed away from Sam, her steps quiet and cautious. She put her hands behind her back, and folded them into each other, her eyebrows curling a little bit at the end, giving him the space that he needed to relax with. Quinn backed up to the wall parallel to Sam's position and pressed her back against the cool glass which contained all the academic awards that any student had earned at McKinley High, all the math club awards, or a picture of last year's valedictorian.

"Quinn, I'm so sorry for snapping at you like that. You just don't know how it-"

"Sam, stop. Stop saying that I don't know how heartbreak fucking feels like. Don't say that nobody has ever experienced what you are experiencing right now," said Quinn, cutting off Sam's words once again, tired of his game.

"Quinn, I know that you have been through much. I know you have been through relationships that never really worked out for you and-"

"God, Sam, shut up!"

Sam closed his mouth, eyes wide, unaware that Quinn would have gotten so mad at him. What did he do? All he was trying to do was just to explain what his situation was with Mercedes and even though Quinn was one of his friends, that she would never understand like he did, never read the story like he did, never interpreted the picture as a still film. _Nope, she'll never understand_, he thought. Mad and angered, he turned his back against her and started walking in the opposite direction.

"Sam, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Sam! Sam!" Quinn shouted throughout the hallways of McKinley. The teachers would care, would come out and yell at her, ask her why she wasn't in class, but she'd slap them in the face and the suspension that would be forced upon her if that was what it took to have Sam to stop going away. "Sam, don't go! Don't leave me! You left me once, please, _I beg_, don't leave me again! Please..."

Sam stopped, his long, jean covered legs still. His pale and rough hands rolled into a tight fist, his eyelids shivering, jerking back and forth. His eyes were burning, burning because he was trying, with all of his might, to hold his tears, hold them back from cascading down his colorless cheeks.

What had happened to them?

More than one year ago, Sam Evans, the goofy little perfect sophomore who had just moved to Ohio with his perfect parents and his perfect siblings; his perfect family. Then he found his perfect friends and sang perfect songs together after their Glee Club rehearsals. And then later on, Sam had found his perfect girl, his perfect Cinderella. A perfect Cinderella named Quinn. And after that, he and his perfect Quinn would have the time of their lives each and every day, going to Glee Club rehearsal together and singing a perfect duet together for their win at Sectionals, along with Santana's rendition of Amy Winehouse's 'Valerie'. And he had given her a perfect proposal, where he knelt down onto the linoleum floor without slipping, and she didn't faint. Granted she didn't say yes at first, but in the end, she had surprised him with a perfect answer.

_Yes. _

But then... their perfect life had completely spiraled down, and everything was jumbled and out of order. Their smooth ride on an Italian gondola in beautiful and perfect Venice had been morphed into a roller coaster in a horror themed amusement park.

And then it was no longer perfect.

But what did perfect mean, anyways? How much did perfect cost and how could you measure perfection? Was there good perfection and was there bad perfection? And what kind of tasks and missions did you have to accomplish until you reached the specific point of perfection that you desired? Or was perfection just handed over to you like it was nothing special at all? Like it was something that everybody received.

"Sam?"

Silence.

"Sam," she begged, her voice cracking like crinkling up a thin sheet of wax paper, thrown into a garbage can. "Sam... I am so sorry."

Sam took a deep breath, stared into the endless hallways of McKinley, the place where he had met his first love. Slowly he turned back around, one step at a time, eyes red with secret tears and he walked towards her. With his calloused right hand, he took her soft left one in his, and led her down the halls, neither of them letting a sound escape from their glued lips.

Slowly, Sam led the two of them to their destination: Room 302, Astronomy. He opened the cream colored metal door, turning the silver steel door knob. In came all the memories, flooding their minds. The teacher's desk, all the tables and chairs, and the super sized solar system model that twinkled and shone above the classroom.

"_I love astronomy, something about all that space makes my problems seem kinda small," Sam said, the littl__e styrofoam Mars floating above their heads. "That one's Venus; planet of looooove." He stretch out the word, hoping for her to catch his drift, pointing to said planet, then later have himself crushed to know that his astronomy skills weren't as sharp as he hoped they were; sharp enough to impress her. _

_"It's actually Mars, planet of war."_

_Sam chuckled softly, his cheeks turning into a dark and deep crimson red. _

_Her eyes were still on the prop while his were looking up and down her lean figure. "Which one are we on?" he asked, a low pitch to his voice. _

_Quinn's eyes rolled around a bit, surprised that he would be hitting on her, but she was enjoying each and every second of it. She knew she had to play it cool, though, and be hard to get since she wouldn't let him on so easily, knowing that her heart had just been mended. _

_"Earth... and I want you to come back to it and talk to me about duets," she said, hands firmly on her hips. "Tell me... why I should be singing with you."_

_"OK," he said, without any hesitation. "Well, we'll start with the choreography," he stated while picking up his trusty guitar, wrapping the strap around his neck and shoulder. "Singing will be easy, so I'llllll start playing." He turned around in a signature goofy Sam Evans style, plucking his guitar strings, a sweet and relaxing melody flying out of the sound hole. She smiled at his dorkiness, her first time having a crush on someone who wasn't actually number one. "Now get behind me." She rolled her eyes and once again smiled, her heart beating so fast that she couldn't even count them. "Get behind me," he barely whispered. _

_Her lips crept up slightly in a small smile, hands still on her hips and she started making her way to where Sam was standing, off to his right side. His eyes stayed on hers as she stopped next to him. _

_"OK," he said, "Now grab my hips." She giggled, her little grin stretching out to a now wide smile 'optimistic enough to cure cancer'. "And start swaying." He thrust his pelvis in and out, all while still gently plucking the guitar strings, and she put her hands to her temple, massaging it. Hesitantly, she plopped her soft and smooth hand onto Sam's bulk shoulder. "And now here's the cool part. Give me your hand." He took said hand and cupped it inside his own, holding them both near to the guitar neck. "Do you know how to play?" he asked gently. _

_"No," she replied, looking into his forest eyes, looking up and down. _

_"Alright, it's easy. Just put that finger there and it's just like that," he said, guiding her index finger onto the G string, her fingers lightly tapping the surface of the guitar neck, his fingers strumming with speed at the sound hole. Her mouth opened and she gasped, her neck muscles popping out as both of them contributed to and made the sweet and simple music together. "Now do it fast back and forth." Her fingers switched on and off the frets, experimenting with new notes and pitches, making perfect sounds. She looked up at him now and then to make sure that she was doing it right and he had nodded every time. _

_His fingers that were strumming slowed down very fast and he looked up at her once more. His lips were slowly curling into a smile, but he forced himself not to, to not make a desperate fool of himself, but did not succeed in his mission. His big cheeks were turning bright red, as red as a ripe and wet sliced tomato on a good old homemade salad. _

_Her eyes were just amazing, and he had never seen anything like them before. What was it like? Having so much beauty and perfection?, he had thought. Staring into her eyes were like staring into the future, but the mesmerizing, mind-controlling hazel green her eyes had acquired from her genetics were completely boggling. Her eyes were the most perfect things in the world, and they were the most beautiful, and he had never seen, never laid his eyes on something as mythical as her eyes. She must have been the daughter of Aphrodite; must have! _

_She was his Neytiri. His soul mate; the one he could not live without... or maybe it was just the eyes. _

_He dropped the head of the neck of the guitar onto the wooden table, a small thumping sound made, and he turned his head towards her way, forehead to forehead, nose to nose, cheek to cheek, practically lip to lip if she had not pulled away at the last second. _

_"No, no. I can't do this," she said. His head dropped in shame. _Why would I want to pull something like that! I'm so stupid!_, he thought to himself in his mind. "And don't say that I'm selfish because you have no idea how much I have given."_

_"I'm sorry," he stuttered, "I wasn't trying to-"_

_"I've been down this path before, I know this feeling, li-like... like I need you," she stammered. "Duets don't work for me and I don't need you. What I need," she started, beginning to pack her books and bag up, "Is to keep Santana off my heels. What I need is to find a way to to torture Rachel." _

_"I'm, I'm sorry," he said again. _

_"And I need to start learning how to ignore people," she huffed, out of breath with her binder and jacket in her arms, leaning against the polyester outfit the Cheerios always and were required to wear. _

_"I'm sorry. I shouldn't, I shouldn't have tried that."_

_"I'm sorry. I made a mistake and umm," she swallowed, "I don't want to sing with you." _

_She walked away, leaving him all alone inside the astronomy room as the door shut behind her, the bell rung above his ears, and he mentally yelled at him one more time. _

"Sam, what are we doing here?" she asked, upset by the scenery since their memories had all been shoved into this one classroom.

"Well, Quinn... there's obviously something up inside your little head, in your mind, so tell me, what the hell is the matter with you now? What's up? Tell me."

She broke out into a sob.

She knelt down onto the floor, a breakdown in her system, and he quickly knelt down to her.

"Quinn, Quinn, I'm sorry. Was it something I said? I'm sorry." How many times had he said that to her before?

She sat down on the floor, legs long and out, stretched, and Sam went down next to her in the same position.

"She tells me she wants to be a raindrop. She doesn't mind falling, as long as she's not alone," she recited.

Sam stared at his feet, trying to understand what she was saying and his eyes grew big when he did.

"Quinn..." he said, taking her hand in his.

_Sam knelt down to the floor and he opened up the little, small, tiny black box, and out came a silver ring, a gleaming diamond in the center, with little tiny flower engravings off to the side, smiling so widely as he did so, excited to see her reaction. _

_She gasped, then quickly coming to her senses. _

_"Oh my God; are you proposing? We've known each other for six weeks; stand up! You're freaking me out!" she giggled, and he smiled while looking up into her eyes. _

_"I want to marry you, someday. Until then, will you accept this promise ring?" _

_Quinn scoffed childishly. "What are you, six?"_

_"If you accept, this ring will symbolize my promise to you to be true. To never pressure you to do anything more than kiss," he stood up in front of her, "To listen to your problems, to tell you when you have food in your teeth... or eye gunk. To come over to your house whenever you need something super heavy moved around." She giggled. "I promise to make you feel proud when you point down the hallway and say 'That dude's my boyfriend'. And I promise to do all of these things without ever trying to sound like Matthew McConaughey." She scoffed and smiled off to the side. "I really care about you, Quinn... and I want us to be together."_

"Sam... I still love you. I don't give a fuck about what anyone else says, but I still fucking love you and I haven't stopped since. I should have told you the day that you... proposed... but I just felt like it was too soon and well, I wanted to play hard to get, even though we were already together." She smiled, but you could see the tears welling up inside her hazel orbs, ready to pour out like the Niagara Falls.

"Quinn..."

"Sam, I feel like my heart... is torn... is ripped... and is smashed into unrecognizable pieces when I see you with Mercedes. I just cannot stand the thought that the man who had loved me so much one day, enough to propose to me... has his sights and heart set on another girl. And it's all because of that stupid feeling that I still have for you inside my aching and breaking heart, Sam."

"Quinn, don't you think that you should talk with Miss Pillsbury about this together?... with me?"

"Is it because I'm not alright right now?"

"Well, I guess, but-"

"Sam, there comes a time in every body's life where they fall. Nothing is perfect, but then again nothing is wrong. Everything is just the way it is, and it's your job to see it in your perspective, in your eyes, and how you react.

"I want to be a raindrop, Sam. I have fallen before in my life, I have fallen _so _many times... but now I want to change the way at how I respond to it. Nobody ever asks for things to be messed up, unless it's for their own intentions. But I know that, sooner or later, I will fall again... but I just don't want to be alone for the next time it happens..."

"I want to be a raindrop, too, Quinn..."

"Well, duh, Sam. Nobody ever wants to be alone when they fall; who will help them up? Or maybe you don't need to have another raindrop by your side."

"What do you mean, Quinn?"

"I mean... maybe you could just be a regular raindrop without anybody by your side... except that when it's raining out... there will always be people with an umbrella in their hands. And then, instead of the two people falling together onto the hard pavement, maybe the one could fall into the arms of the umbrella... it's a whole lot more comfy, at least."

Sam smiled before asking another question. "Do you have an umbrella, Quinn?"

"No..." she answered, "But hopefully, one day I will."

"Me too..." he agreed.

"Don't you already have one, Sam? Or, at least I know _who _you want to be your umbrella."

"Who?..."

"Mercedes," she whispered.

"Quinn..."

"Sam... you were my hero, OK? You took me away to Narnia, my utopia, when I was feeling down, and you were my hero. I always felt like total crap before I met you; I had to bring down even Santana in order for me to feel better. And after that whole issue with Beth and Puck and Shelby and my teenage pregnancy, I had no idea what to do or what to believe in after that. My own father left me. But then that one day in Glee Club when I saw you... I just... really, really liked you. I thought that you were the perfect guy... ever. And then after that, we actually started dating, and I had no idea that that would happen. When I was with you, my life was magical. It was like I was Neytiri and you were Jake, don't think that I never paid attention when we watched those eighty seven times of reruns from _Avatar_, Sam. Don't think that I never cared about something you obviously loved more than anything. You were my Jake, Sam, and you would carry me away into the forest after you changed in that weird morphing pod and I would be hesitant at first, but then we'd fall in love with each other and protect each other no matter what. And then when the evil humans would come and attack the place, then you would kick their asses and you would kill that fat bald man with the ugly muscles and you could come and pick me up and... and you would save me, Sam." Quinn's eyes were red with tears, and many had dropped down from her eyelids and she was crying so quietly.

Quinn's head drooped to the crook of Sam's shoulder and she silently cried. He couldn't think of anything to do, or anything to say, and so he just sat there on the floor with her, comforting her, rubbing his hand up and down his back on her lavender colored cardigan. He couldn't help but think of all those times and memories that they had spent each other with. Even the tiny moments counted, like when her head was on his shoulder during Glee Club, where Rachel blabbed on and on about her next solo in the upcoming competition, or the times were they were doing big group numbers on the magical stage at McKinley that could do anything and they were paired together. He thought of the all the memories where she would jump into his car at ten thirty at night and drive all the way to his house, only to pop in the Blu-Ray disc of _Avatar _or _Star Trek_and watch until one of them fell asleep, in which that was usually Quinn, who would be snoozing off in his lap.

He finally spoke up.

"Quinn... I'm so, so sorry."

"Sam..." she sniffed and rubbed her red eyes, "The past... is the past... and like I've said before, you can't change it, but you can let go of it and start your future."

"Quinn... no matter what happens... I will always love you and you will always be my first love... no matter what happens in the future... even if the person I marry is you."He smiled, took her hand and squeezed it softly.

"Sam..." she started, breath heaving and still crying, "Someday... you might find love in someone new and I'll have to let go... but I wish you love and I wish it true... because... that's the best I can do for you after this huge mess... and if I ever run into you... just remember that you were and always will be my hero forever."

^.^

_Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it! The raindrop concept is from a short by Wong Fu Productions (a fast growing Chinese-American film making, writing, and editing team; go check them out!) called 'When Five Fell'. I'm thinking of using this theory for lots of oneshots for my favorite ships, I already have one for Faberry. And the last little paragraph that Quinn says has some rearranged song lyrics from David Choi (a Korean singer from California who's really good and often collaborates with Wong Fu) called 'Won't Even Start'. Go check them all out; they're really awesome! :) Please review, thanks sweets! :3_

_Get this: so recently my English teacher had a writing assignment to do: write a mystery story. The story was supposed to be a mystery, following a mystery equation, and my teacher said that it should be a mystery story and not a mysterious story. So after hearing that, I went to do something so out of the ordinary where my mystery story didn't involve murder and psycho shit like everyone else's, and instead, I used Wong Fu Productions' raindrop theory from one of their short movies 'When Five Fell' and went in a whole different direction for a mystery story, and just today, my teacher pulled me aside to tell me that my story was so well written and creative, that I should look into this publishing contest where you submit an entry of your writing work and which ever one story they think is the best, they will publish. He also said that I should look into joining this writing workshop he runs (but I unfortunately cannot join because I have to attend and play my violin in orchestra). I know that this was a whole lot of gabba gabba, but I was so stoked because my teacher is a graduate of Yale University with a Master's degree in Language Arts and I was just so astonished by his recommendation of me getting my mystery story published. I'm so sorry for this huge thing. Just wanted to let you know because you guys __**are **__the ones reading and help me improve. Thanks! ;D_

_P.S. This wasn't rated M for mature content or... misbehavior *cough cough*, but for Emotional!Quinn which really shouldn't be joked about like what I just did. :/_


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